


can i make it better, with the lights turned on?

by kattyshack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (i mean they want it but still he makes them do it), (incidentally if you were put-off by ramsay in ch1 then ch2 should be chill for you), (or a fuckin satisfying one at least), (seriously he forces them to fuck), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuckolding, Dirty Talk, Dubious Consent, F/M, Half-Sibling Incest, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Past Rape/Non-con, Possessive Behavior, Protectiveness, Ramsay is his own warning, Revenge, Romance, Sexual Content, Tenderness, post-battle doin it, ramsay gets fuckin rekt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-13 19:25:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13577361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/pseuds/kattyshack
Summary: written for jonsa kink week on tumblr: days 2 + 5: in the game of thrones, you fuck or you die + blood/post-battle kink:As Westeros’ ancient laws begin to crumble beneath the weight of war and its ensuing chaos, the country’s greatest criminals experiment with their new reign. And so it comes to pass that Ramsay Bolton — the interloping master of Winterfell — summons the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Jon Snow, to the castle for an audience with the imprisoned Sansa Stark. Although Sansa knows what to expect from her husband, Jon does not anticipate Ramsay’s penchant for twisted cruelty… and none of them expect what comes to pass during or after his demands are fulfilled.(work and chapter titles from “shelter,” by the xx)





	1. please teach me gently, how to breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Melissa_Alexander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melissa_Alexander/gifts).



> a/n: def the darkest thing i’ve written, but the jon/sansa romance balanaces it out pretty well. so like, maybe proceed with caution, but proceed all the same
> 
> other notes: in this universe, jon was still murdered/resurrected, but sansa remains a prisoner in her marriage to ramsay, so they don’t reunite until ramsay summons jon to winterfell; blah blah blah night’s watch oaths, but per this fic’s summary, everyone in westeros is fighting and nobody cares about the government; no white walkers because idc about them, ever (unless the night king is taking out another dragon in which case YAH THAT’S MY BOYYY but also that is completely irrelevant to this fic so)
> 
> -dedicated to melissa, who read pretty much all fuckin ~9k of this here chap 1 in text message increments over the past several days bc her thirst, like mine, knows no bounds-

_I shouldn’t be here._

The thought follows Jon down the battle-worn corridors of his past home, echoing along with his footsteps off the stone walls of Winterfell. He is flanked, front and back, left and right, by Bolton guards: men too hulking for Jon to take on his own, but stupid enough that he just might get away with it if he felt the urge. And he has, several times — the bloodlust rages within him, has refused to be tempered since Melisandre tore him away from the jaws of death.

But then he recalls Ramsay Bolton’s letter and he sees _red_ —

_Your sister is a fine woman, Lord Commander. A proper wife for the reigning Warden of the North, and far finer than any woman I’d hoped to have before my late father legitimized me. Bastard boys such as we could never hope for such fine things as Eddard Stark’s noble daughter, could we?_

_She is a sweet thing, Lord Commander — oftentimes too much so for my liking. She cries for her family every night; I can hardly stand the sounds she makes in her grief. I try my best to please her but she only cries harder. I cannot hope to restore her parents or eldest brother to her — nor her younger siblings (I fear, as I’m sure you do, that they are long dead) — but you’ve made a fine man of yourself, haven’t you?_

_I daresay, Lord Commander, that you are precisely what my lady wife needs._

_Come and see._

There are a thousand reasons Jon shouldn’t be here — his vows, the oath of the Night’s Watch and their long history of sustaining those sacred words — but they all pale in comparison to the one reason he had ridden his midnight-black steed so hard to the gates of Winterfell:

 _Sansa._ Her name drives the beating of his heart. A door creaks, long and high, in front of him when the guard pushes it open. _Sansa is here._

The torchlight flickers upon the walls, casting flame and shadow against one another, and Jon does not recall the reasons why he and Sansa had not been close as children. He only recalls her voice, singing soft and tender the tales of valiant knights and their lady loves; he remembers the way she would brush out her hair, and then Lady’s coat afterwards; and — perhaps most vividly of all — the feel of her little hand in his, as she strived to teach him how to dance, and win a lady’s favour as he swept her across the floor to the tune of some lively Northern ballad.

Jon had never quite got the knack of such things. But Sansa had been patient, kind, and so ardently sure that she could make a storybook hero out of him.

Now, years later, Jon fears he may only disappoint her dreams for him. But more than that, he fears that Ramsay Bolton has stripped her dreams away from her entirely.

 _Damn the Watch_ , he thinks darkly as he follows his guards into the next room. _I couldn’t save Robb, or find Arya or Bran or Rickon… But I can whisk Sansa away from this place we once called home._

The door creaks shut behind him. The sound of the lock sliding into place echoes dully around the chambers that Jon recognizes as the late Lord and Lady Stark’s. Before he can ask why he’s been brought to such a room, though, there is a sharp cry of laughter from the corner.

When Jon turns to identify the sound, he does not see the torchlight or the room at all — but only _red_ again.

“Delightful!” A man who can be no other but Ramsay Bolton grins — twisted and painful and almost more like a grimace, if only his vibrant blue eyes didn’t dance so — and claps his hands. “I must say, Lord Commander, I worried that you’d send an emissary. I’m quite pleased to see that I was wrong about you. This will make things much more fun, don’t you agree?”

 _Fun?_ The word is foreign to Jon now, and even more so when Ramsay Bolton utters it in such a way. The man’s letter had suggested an addled mind, and Jon had heard more than he’d like to of his reputation, but it is something entirely otherworldly to encounter the man himself now.

“Oh, but I won’t keep you waiting,” Ramsay assures as Jon stares blankly at him, itching for Longclaw… but the weapon had been stripped of him upon his arrival.

 _No small wonder why_ , he thinks as Ramsay snaps his fingers and, as if he had magicked the castle to heed his commands, the door at the other end of the room swings open, and another person is shoved roughly forward.

Jon’s throat closes, so that he cannot so much as swallow the breath that catches at the sight of her.

_Sansa._

She is dressed in a floaty gown of purest, translucent ivory, far thinner and more revealing than any noble Westerosi fashion. Her feet are bare, and her hands tied together with a rough length of rope, fingers tightly clasped in front of the center of her thighs. Her long auburn hair is loose, falling past her shoulders in soft waves of fire to rival that of the torches in their sconces around the chambers.

And the bruises… Jon’s blood boils, and his hand closes over thin air when he reaches for his sword that isn’t there. Sansa’s skin — once unblemished, porcelain, flawless — has been marred by Ramsay Bolton’s fingertips: her wrists, her arms, her throat, her face. She is stained by his unwelcome touch; and yet there are no tears to be found, nor even the faintest of tracks. Her pale lips do not tremble, and her gaze does not shy away from Jon’s.

She lifts her chin, self-assured as any queen, and her summer sky eyes are tired but they do not blink.

Her lips part to speak, but Jon does not wait for the words to come forth before he’s closing the space between them in just a few long strides. He pays no mind to Ramsay Bolton’s unyielding stare as he takes Sansa in his arms; she cannot hold him in return, bound as her hands are, but he can feel her eyelashes flutter against his neck when she buries her face there. He can feel her sharp intake of breath, and his own is released when he feels her melt in his embrace. She smells of lavender and smoke.

Her tied hands clutch at his jerkin’s belt, making sure he does not leave her; but Jon has no intention of doing so.

Sansa’s face is buried in the crook of his shoulder, where her husband cannot see, and so she whispers in Jon’s ear, _“Do what he says. Please.”_

Jon pulls back, just far enough that Sansa might see his furrowed brow, his confused frown. Ramsay Bolton had summoned him from his sacred vows and duties as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, and Jon had heeded the call — what more could the man want of him?

Truthfully, Jon had not thought on it. The letter, chicken-scratched taunts of Sansa’s pain and sealed with the scarlet stamp of the Boltons’ flayed man, had driven Jon to the point of madness. He had not stopped to _think_ at all. He had known only the one singular, searing goal: to ride to Winterfell, to get to Sansa.

He had not even thought of what he would do when he reached her. Foggy images had crowded his mind — blood and a slash of his sword, shouts and screams, the snap of a wolf’s bloodied jaws, a man’s head on a spike — but none had been clear enough for Jon to formulate a plan. His departure from Castle Black had been hasty, impulsive; he had cared for nothing but his destination.

Now, with Sansa’s murmured plea ringing in the space between them, Jon is at a loss as to what to do next — and suddenly, the walls of Winterfell feel like a dangerous place for them to be.

“Oh, don’t stop,” Ramsay insists from his seat in the corner. The guards who stand sentinel at the doorways shift restlessly, as though waiting for something. “Go on, _Lord Snow_ — I did tell you my lady wife was in need of you, didn’t I? Don’t disappoint her, now.”

“What —” The word is a snarl on Jon’s lips. His arm curls around Sansa’s waist protectively, possessively, and Ramsay does not fail to notice.

“That’s good,” he declares as he rises from his seat. “Very good. If I could make a suggestion, though…”

He approaches them, swift and stealthy as a street cat. Before Jon can get his hand around Ramsay Bolton’s throat, the man has taken Jon’s from Sansa’s waist and placed it firmly upon her chest, right over her heartbeat.

It’s steadier than Jon’s, as if she’d known what was coming all the while — as if she’d known her bastard half-brother would be touching her here.

He has no weapon, no men, no plan of attack or escape. Ghost is prowling somewhere in the wolfswood, but one direwolf is no match for Bolton and his men when they’re on high alert as they are now.

Jon swallows thickly. His fingers twitch. But he cannot take his eyes from where Ramsay has forced his hand — not until he sees a current of auburn hair, as Ramsay pushes it over Sansa’s shoulder to bare her neck. Her jaw tightens at the cold caress of her husband’s fingertips, but she shows no other hint of displeasure, although Ramsay can sniff it out all the same.

“My poor, pretty wife,” he coos in her ear, his wide, unblinking eyes on Jon as he does so. “She doesn’t like it when I touch her. She only cries for her family, for her _brothers_ … and I’m afraid, Lord Commander, that you’re the only one left.”

Jon’s throat dries up. From his letter alone and the rumours that followed it, Jon had not expected Ramsay Bolton to be a reasonable man. But he hadn’t expected _this_ , either — or, perhaps, he simply hadn’t wished to entertain the notion that soft, sweet Sansa was in the clutches of such a man, and so he had refused the thoughts before they could overtake him completely.

“Well go on, Lord Commander,” Ramsay says, voice inching towards impatience now. He wraps a hand around Sansa’s hair and tugs hard enough to make her gasp in pain — her first slip, and it only makes him pull harder.

Jon’s vision flashes, and a low growl escapes him. Ramsay grins.

“There you are,” he goads, and shoves Sansa forward into Jon’s arms. She treads on his toes and his hand grips her breast more tightly. “The bastard wolf of Winterfell. Take your mate, why don’t you?”

Ramsay gives Sansa’s hair one final, harsh tug, smirks, and leaves them standing at the foot of the bed, laden with furs and the ghosts of their past. He resumes his seat in the corner and waves a hand, inviting — nay, _insisting_ — that they get on with it.

“Well, go on,” he presses when neither Jon nor Sansa make a further move towards the other. “I didn’t keep you waiting, did I, Lord Commander? I brought your sister forth as soon as you arrived, in a show of good faith. I expect my courtesies to be returned.”

Jon wants to ask why he’s doing this, what the point of it is, but one look at Ramsay Bolton’s face and he doesn’t think he wants to know the answer. All he wants is the same thing that had driven him, foolhardy, to Winterfell in the first place: Sansa. Finding her, protecting her, taking her away.

Sansa’s gaze locks on his, steadfast and strong, and her words echo in the breath of space between them: _Do what he says. Please._

If they must play Ramsay’s game, then Jon will pay that price. He tells himself it’s for their survival, their escape, nothing more — but his gaze tracks the bob of Sansa’s throat, the hollow of her collarbone, the swell of her tits, and his hand on her heartbeat… her scent, lavender and smoke… the lush waves of her hair… her soft, pale mouth…

Melisandre had brought him back to life, but she could not restore his soul. Whatever darkness had taken Jon in death has lingered, and he _wants her_.

Now he tells himself it’s to give her comfort, and pleasure if he can. Surely she has known neither in her marriage to Ramsay Bolton, if his demands of them now are any indication of how he treats Sansa when they’re alone, when Jon isn’t here to shield her.

He sweeps his thumb gently over her breast, feels her heartbeat stutter, and the veil that had clouded his mind’s eye since his resurrection is momentarily lifted —

Sansa, on Joffrey’s arm. _Radiant._ A heretofore slumbering beast in his chest, stirring, snarling, saliva dripping from its jaws as the bloodlust rolls in his gut…

 _That’s vile._ A swift, hard punch to his arm as another girl — hair red, _orange_ and wild, eyes like ice chips and crooked teeth, but still Jon could _pretend_ — asked him what he had always feared to answer for himself: _Would you bed your sister?_

There were other thoughts, wisps of memory, a thousand of them flitting through his mind as he drowns in Sansa’s earnest, pleading gaze: Infatuation. Rage. Confusion. Arousal. Shame. Grief — that he could never have her, _would never_ have her.

He had bottled it up, contained it, and departed for the Wall where he’d thought of her still. He’d told himself it wasn’t for any other reason than those for which he thought of Robb, of Arya, of Bran and Rickon… but that wasn’t true. It wasn’t the same; Sansa had _never_ been the same.

The veil lifts, and Jon sees his first life with more clarity than he had while he’d been living it. Sansa swallows the lump in her throat, and Jon wonders if she sees it, too.

From his corner, Ramsay huffs, the impatience not so much creeping now as it is all-encompassing. “Am I going to have to tell you what to do every step of the way?” he wants to know. One of the guards coughs. “I’d heard the Night’s Watch might as well be eunuchs, but I really thought more of you than this, Lord Commander.”

Jon grits his teeth. Sansa’s own silence has already taught him to bite his tongue and let Ramsay say his piece — and when he continues, Jon knows that he won’t be able to hesitate any longer.

“If you don’t take her,” Ramsay says, voice running like the ice that glazes all of the North, slicing through the lord’s chambers like the winter winds outside, “I will, and I’ll make you watch when I do.”

There is a beat of heavy silence, and then the venom, the threat, in his words is gone just as quickly as it had come:

“Very well, then.” Ramsay claps his hands once, then rubs his palms together. The _swish-swish-swish_ of his winter-chapped skin is deafening in the silence of the room — nothing but the crackling torches, the shuffle of faceless guards, shrouded in shadow, nothing but Sansa’s shallow breath and the beat of her heart. The blood in Jon’s veins, so long cold and dormant, flares to life — running hot, thawing him quickly from the inside-out; Sansa’s shuddering breath bursts upon his lips, and Jon’s blood _sings_.

“Unbind her hands.”

Jon does not turn his head to acknowledge Ramsay’s command; he only follows it. His hands slip to Sansa’s wrists, trying to tell her with his eyes alone that it will be alright, he’ll take care of her, he’ll take her away when this is all through —

_But what will you do with her, once you’re free?_

He does not wish to ponder on that. _Not yet._

His fingers are rough but nimble; they make quick work of the rope that ties her delicate wrists. The bind falls to the floor in a heap, slithering lightly upon the stones. Jon caresses the pain from her wrists, her hands, where the rope had rubbed her red and nearly raw. Ramsay does not order it, but Jon lifts her hands to his mouth and brushes his lips across her sore flesh.

Ramsay Bolton — _Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North_ , Jon thinks bitterly, spitefully — can make him do all manner of unspeakable things to the girl he calls half-sister, but he cannot deprive Sansa of tenderness when it’s Jon who takes her to bed.

The man — _her husband_ , Jon thinks, more spitefully still, the rage coursing through his veins to contend with his shameful want of her — says nothing of Jon’s sweet kisses upon Sansa’s skin, so he continues his ministrations as if they were alone, as if they were not forced but had come together of their own volition. He can give her this, Jon thinks, this one shred of control, of hope, of a promise upon which he swears his own life.

_I can give her all of me._

But only if it’s what she wants.

Jon holds her hands to his mouth and murmurs into them, “It doesn’t have to be me. Pretend I’m someone else. Whoever you want, Sansa. I’ll be him.”

She leans in, closing the final stretch of space between them. Her chin rests in her upturned palms, still held fast by Jon, and she is so close now that he can feel her lips’ softness brush against the dryness of his own — and her words make them drier still: “It should be you.”

What has she endured, that she should want him this way? Jon wonders, and then must ask the same of himself. What sort of man was he, to want her as long as he has? To pine for her, to grieve the fact that pining was all he had? Was this his punishment, Jon wonders now, for craving her so? Is this what the gods would consider _just_ — giving him his heart’s desire, but forcing it upon them both in such a cruel way?

 _You may have her_ , the Old Gods seem to whisper from the depths of the godswood outside, _but her husband will taint your union. You may take her, at the price of her honour._

“You’ll treat me gently,” Sansa whispers into their joined hands, just as her unworthy husband clears his throat, impatient again. She ignores him for just a moment more. “It should be you, Jon.”

“Don’t be shy, now,” Ramsay cuts through their intimacy with the precision of a blade that Jon wishes to take to his throat. “I certainly won’t be, if you force me to take your place — nor will my guards, once I tire of her and give them a turn at her. And I’ll make you watch, Lord Snow,” he adds again, “so you might see how to properly take a woman.”

Another growl — feral, _murderous_ — stirs, deep in Jon’s gut, and tears from his chest. _He can’t have her. Not again. Not anymore. I won’t let any of them have her._

There is no time left to consider, to rationalize, to make sense of this or beg forgiveness from gods who had not intervened to save them from this fate. There is only here and now, Sansa’s hands in his and the flash of fear in her eyes, and Jon will make her forget — the fear, the pain, Ramsay’s voice calling from his corner of the room… Jon will make her forget everything that is not his gentle hands on her, his mouth savouring her, his breath pouring life between her trembling lips.

He will make her forget _everything_ , but the way that he loves her.

Their mouths meet, crashing together like the waves of the Narrow Sea, harsh and wet and wild. Jon can hear murmuring around them, shifting feet and coughs and Ramsay Bolton’s quiet chuckle, but it is nothing compared to the blood rushing, pounding in his head when his tongue slips between Sansa’s lips. He swallows her gasp and exchanges it for his own groan when she threads her bruised fingers through his hair.

He ignores everything else — he will make himself forget, too — but her grip in his curls, her seeking lips, her sweet breath…

Jon nips at her bottom lip, coaxing Sansa’s further apart so he might drink his fill of her. _To save us_ , he thinks, but the words are faint compared to the blood that sings in his ears: _Because you want her._

His mouth leaves hers to descend to the slope of her neck, to give her a moment to catch her breath — Jon needs no such moment; his breath has come short and ragged since he’d been brought back to life, and he has grown accustomed to it. But he wishes to taste her, all of her, to lavish her with attention, the affection she has sorely missed for so long —

“That’s it,” Ramsay’s voice cuts in, and Jon snarls into the space behind Sansa’s ear, but he does not stop kissing her, does not falter. His hands take her hips, bringing her closer into him, flush against his body so that he might protect her from her husband’s demands.

“Bite her. There, on her throat,” Ramsay says, eerily calm, as Jon’s mouth drags down Sansa’s neck, licking a long stripe across her heated flesh. “Leave a mark.”

Jon complies, because he’s been ordered to and his hunger for her compels him to follow through. He dips his head and latches onto her pulse point, feeling it quicken against his tongue as he bites the skin then sucks, hard, lapping at the wound to soothe it before he bites her again. She shudders and whines softly in his ear, her hands sweeping his back.

“Good.” The smirk is evident in Ramsay’s praise. “Let the North see how their esteemed Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch wants to claim his sister. His own blood.”

 _Yes_ , Jon thinks as he sucks another bloom into the slope of her shoulder, next to the strap of her dress. _Let the North see how I’ve claimed her, that she is mine now, and that you won’t have her after tonight. She is mine, and I’ll kill you before you can touch her again._

Jon buries his face in her hair, where Ramsay cannot see, and he breathes a question: “Is this alright, Sansa? Tell me how to make you feel good.”

For that is all he can give to her right now.

Sansa nods, almost imperceptibly, and rolls her hips into Jon’s. He hisses, long and low, and his grip digs so firmly into her hips as he moves his own in time to the rhythm she’s set, that he’s sure to leave marks of his own upon her. _Better mine than yours_ , he thinks savagely when Ramsay speaks again.

“Ah, my wife is more wanton than I’ve experienced for myself,” he observes, causing the guards to mutter in agreement amongst themselves. “Such a whore, and for her own brother —”

Jon’s control — such a finely-woven thing already — snaps. He hauls Sansa against him, rutting against her like a wild wolf. She whimpers, moans, louder than she has thus far, and Jon muffles the sound with his own mouth. One hand leaves her hip to cup the back of her neck, to control the angle of the kiss, to ravish her mouth hard and deep, to drown Ramsay’s words in a storm of passion —

But of course he notices, and Ramsay Bolton does not so much as flirt with mercy.

“You don’t like that, do you?” he sneers, the question high and clear to contend with Jon and Sansa’s hoarse, haggard, _riotous_ breathing. “When I call your sister a whore. But you never heard her when I took her to bed, did you?”

 _No._ Jon wishes he couldn’t hear him now, either. He kisses Sansa harder, prying her lips apart with his own, mouths so wide and intent on each other that his jaw clicks in pain, but he doesn’t relent. His hand slips past the slit of her dress to grasp her thigh, to hike it over his hip and thrust more purposefully against her.

“You never heard her cry for her family as I tried _so hard_ to please her,” Ramsay is saying, his words dripping false and sickly sweet as he watches his wife arch her lithe, broken body against her bastard brother’s all-too-eager one. “Never heard her sob for you when I came to take my rights, after I’d told her you were alive and well, the youngest Lord Commander in so many centuries —”

Sansa’s hands tangle in Jon’s hair, yank him down to worship the swell of her breasts with his mouth. She tastes sweet here, too, skin like rose petals and just as fragrant.

“ _‘Jon_ , _’_ she would cry when I wanted her,” Ramsay continues. There is a bite to his voice — venomous and sharp, like some dark, untameable creature — as he mocks them, and still they do not respond but to rut harder against one another. “Put her on the bed, bastard,” he snaps when Jon sucks her earlobe between his teeth and Sansa releases a high-pitched sigh. “My lady looks nearly dead on her feet.”

Sansa readily obeys, laying atop the furs as Jon follows to lay atop her, peppering ragged-breath kisses up her flushed, heaving body as he crawls over her. Everywhere, she tastes the way she smells — of rich lavender and burning woodsmoke, begging for Jon’s soft touch and stoking the need deep within that is rising ever more quickly to the surface. With every swipe of his tongue, pinch of his teeth, with every clench of her fingers in his hair and every moan that slips from between her swollen lips, with each thrust of his hard cock straining against his breeches, every arch of her damp cunt, Jon wants her _more_.

Ramsay orders Jon to divest himself of his shirt. Sansa’s fingers follow his, undoing his belt, laces, buttons, until he can shrug out of his jerkin and yank his tunic and undershirt over his head. They join the rope on the floor. Sansa’s hands, soft and warm, map the planes of his bare chest, trace the dips and grooves of his scars. He shudders. 

“Take her breast,” Ramsay snaps, and Jon’s hand clutches over Sansa’s heart once more. “Put your other hand on her cunt, bastard, and see for yourself what a common slattern she is. Perhaps she’ll even scream your name. She’s quite well-versed in that by now, aren’t you, wife?”

Sansa does not answer. Her eyes are screwed shut, her hand clasped over the one Jon holds to her breast, leading his fingers in their exploration of her hot, supple flesh. His other hand slips between their writhing, rolling hips, past the split skirt of her gown, to find her bare of smallclothes and wet for him. He wants to bury his fingers inside her, his face, his cock, wants to feel her muscles clench for him, to hear her moan his name, that she is his, his, _his_ —

“Answer me, wife,” Ramsay barks. Sansa’s eyes snap open but they stay focused on Jon, frantic and pupils blown, begging him as his fingers stroke her mound… “You like your bastard brother’s hands on you, don’t you? Tell me.”

Her lips press together in defiance, but Ramsay’s patience with her won’t keep forever or even much longer. So Jon rubs his thumb against her clit and mutters just beneath her jaw, “Tell _me_ , Sansa — tell me you like it when I touch you.”

“I like it when my bastard brother touches me,” Sansa gasps when Jon dips his fingertips inside of her, curling slightly, angling his hips so Ramsay won’t catch on to what he’s doing, just in case he makes them stop. “I like it — _oooh_ —” she breaks off on a moan when Jon bites her again, this time on her breast. “I like it when he puts his mouth on me.”

His fingers slip deeper inside of her, and he sucks on her skin so hard that it makes a loud slurping sound — the better to distract Ramsay from what Jon’s hand is doing between his wife’s legs.

“You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?” Ramsay presses. “Thinking about your brother when I come to take you. You have a willing husband, but you’ve been lusting for Jon Snow since I told you he still lived.”

Now Sansa’s eyes are wide not with fear, but worry. She studies Jon’s face as her husband awaits an answer; Jon nods, urging her to tell the truth. Ramsay will force it from her regardless, and Jon wants to know. _Needs to._

“Shove your fingers in her harder, bastard,” Ramsay spits before Sansa can speak. “I see what you’re doing. Do you think I’m not watching? Fuck her harder with your fingers and I might let you use your cock on her, too. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he demands of Sansa next, his fury still calm but barely contained. “You’d like it if your _dear Lord Snow_ split you with his cock. You’ve thought of it, haven’t you? Tell your brother you wanted him when your husband’s cock was inside of you —”

“I wanted you, Jon,” Sansa near-on sobs when he shoves a third finger into her cunt, pumping mercilessly as his thumb massages her clit to make her come. Her fingernails bite into his shoulders, the back of his neck. “I thought of you, every night when my husband came to me. I wanted you, not him. I want you more than my own husband.”

There is a storm raging inside Jon’s head. His cock is so hard that it _hurts_ ; his hips jerk in time to his hand’s movements, desperately seeking that friction between Sansa’s thighs. _She wants me wants me wants me — as much as I want her…_

He nuzzles her cheek, and sucks her earlobe between his teeth, more roughly this time than the last, and mutters all manner of filthy, lovely things so that only she can hear him:

“You’ll never have your husband again,” he assures her, low and gruff and more so with every word. His mouth opens against her ear, breath hot and uneven and all for her. He curls his fingers inside her tight, wet cunt, presses his thumb hard against her clit, and she releases a long, broken groan. “It’s me and you, Sansa. You’re my woman now, not his, do you hear? I won’t let him take you. It’s just me and you here. Everything I do to you, I want. I want to touch you.” He latches onto her neck, inhales the sweat that’s begun to bead beneath her lush curtain of hair, and rubs her clit more insistently. “Wanna make you come. Make you love me…”

“Stop,” Ramsay orders just as Sansa’s hips lift from the furs, straining for all of Jon that she can reach. “Get up.”

Reluctantly, Jon peels his body from Sansa’s. He helps her into a sitting position and doesn’t miss her wince when he slips his fingers from her cunt. She had been so close to release; he’d felt her muscles clench, the delicious thrum of her walls around his seeking, coaxing hand. If he’d had her alone, all to himself, he would have made her come more than once by now. He would have loved her slowly but thoroughly, as well as he’s always wanted, as well as she deserves.

 _Another time_ , he vows privately as he tucks her hair behind her ear and traces her jawline. She nuzzles into his touch and his heart nearly stops dead in his chest. _Another time, I’ll worship you for hours, days, the rest of our lives._

Ramsay cuts through Jon’s silent promises: “Put your fingers in her mouth. Let my whore wife taste herself on you, bastard.”

Jon swallows as Sansa takes his wrist and brings it to her mouth. His fingers glisten with her in the waning torchlight; the fire catches on her eyes and his fingertips, on the little peek of her tongue as it sweeps her lips before they part and envelop him — index, middle, and ring fingers, the ones that had fucked her so furiously into the goose-feather mattress her parents had once lain upon.

_If only Father could see what you’ve done to his pretty, prized daughter now…_

But their father isn’t here to see what he’s done, and Jon has no plans to stop when this is through.

Sansa sucks hard on his fingers, as hard as he’d sucked on her neck, her tits, as hard as he wants to suck the smooth expanse of her thighs, her mound, her clit. She swirls her tongue and bobs her head, nearly freeing his fingers only to take him back in her mouth to the knuckle. Jon watches her — unblinkingly, transfixed, panting like the dog he is for her.

He does not wait for Ramsay to tell him to touch her. Jon will touch her as he pleases; he plans to rip Ramsay Bolton’s still-beating heart from his chest, and Jon will give the man no more satisfaction than he must beforehand. So he cups her breast, kneading it as Sansa moans around his fingers in her mouth.

“Rip her dress. Only the bodice.” There is a barely-concealed excitement in Ramsay’s voice now. “Give my lady wife _pleasure_ , Lord Commander. My love, touch yourself, and let your brother taste your arousal on your fingers next. Even filthy whores must play fair, mustn't they?”

They are a tangle of limbs, as they hasten to follow Ramsay’s orders and to fulfill their own longing for one another. Jon tears her dress down to the skirt — the sound, the splitting of finest silk, echoes in the silence of the chambers — and takes her naked breast in his mouth, laving attention onto one pert, dusty-rose nipple.

Sansa pumps her fingers into her cunt, her other hand clenched tightly upon Jon’s shoulder as she arches into his mouth and her own touch. He grips her waist, pulling her close, and takes her fingers eagerly when she offers them. She is on her knees next to him, so that Jon has to gaze up at her through his lashes as he sups fervently on her wet, tangy digits.

“Gorgeous,” he mumbles as he slurps on her knuckles. “Your cunt tastes so good, Sansa —”

“Would you like to taste it, truly?” Ramsay offers around a high, mad chuckle. “My wife’s sweet center, Jon Snow — would you like to feast on it? Say it and I may let you, else my guards seem to be growing weary of this game. Perhaps they’d like to play —”

“I want to eat your wife’s cunt, Lord Bolton,” Jon snaps like a wolf. The rage is simmering within him, that aching need to take Sansa for his own and slit her husband’s throat. He holds her to him, but turns to stare dead in the other man’s eye. Just as his hand slithers between his body and Sansa’s, as he flicks her clit and makes her cry his name, Jon tells her interloping lord, “I want what no other man’s had — to eat your wife’s cunt, and taste her pleasure on my tongue.”

There is a tic in Ramsay’s jaw when he smiles. But he waves a hand for them to carry on.

“Get on your knees for her, then. Your _Queen in the North_.” He drawls the words like a taunt. But as Jon lowers to prostrate himself at Sansa’s bare feet — gaze on her face all the while, hands sweeping up her calves to the insides of her thighs — he thinks that no other title would suit her better.

 _Queen in the North…_ The words spin in Jon’s mind as he parts her sheer white skirts to find her thatch of auburn curls, glistening with want for him. He would place the crown upon her head himself.

“Show me how I might please my lady wife, once you’re gone,” Ramsay chuckles, cold and dark as the crypts beneath their feet.

 _I’m not going anywhere._ Jon sucks a mark into the vee of Sansa’s thighs — he will litter her with the way that he wants her, cherishes her, loves her, and the marks will stay long after Ramsay Bolton’s have faded — and murmurs the promise there, before he swipes his tongue up her slit and delves between her folds.

And oh, but she _is_ the most heavenly, saccharine thing he’s ever had — tart and heady, intoxicating, as though he’d drunk a barrel of wine in one sitting. Jon grasps the underside of one knee and hauls her leg over his shoulder, to open her up so he might taste more of her tang upon his tongue.

He can hear her above him, sighing the sweet song of his name. Nothing has ever been lovelier than the cadence of Sansa’s voice, no song more heart-wrenching than the one she sings with her thighs around his head and her fingers laced in his hair.

She arches into him; Jon’s free hand goes to her arse — clutching, flexing, moving her body to follow the ministrations of his mouth upon her.

“A little louder, Lord Commander.” Ramsay clears his throat pointedly. Faintly, Jon can hear the man’s fingers _drum-drum-drum_ upon the wooden arm of his chair. “It’s quite tedious watching you whisper sweet nothings into my wife's cunt. You wouldn’t want me to get bored, now, would you?”

Jon doesn’t like to think of what Ramsay Bolton would do in his lethargy, but he does wish to learn the way that Sansa peaks — so he rears up on his knees, grip biting into her thigh, her arse, as he eats her _harder_ — mouth wide and searching and _sucking_ ; tongue probing, flicking, lapping at her deepest, darkest places and making her muscles quiver and quake.

He makes the most obscene noises, groaning and smacking his lips whilst he drinks every drop of her arousal, as it dampens his swollen lips and the scruff of his beard. She will be pink between her thighs because of him — _just another way to prove she’s mine_ , Jon thinks, triumphant even before he’s made Sansa come for him.

She’s rolling her hips to the beat of his lips, legs clamped tight about his ears but still Jon can hear her, _feel her_ — high whimpers, drawn-out whines, steal-your-breath sighs, trembling limbs and hands intent on pulling the hair from his scalp. But Jon doesn’t mind — what are his pretty curls compared to the pretty sounds that fall from betwixt her petal-soft lips?

Jon flattens his tongue and swipes it up her slit slowly, _achingly_ so, and then fast fast _fast_ as though he is a starving animal just come upon an oasis.

He glories in this, fucking Sansa with his tongue; it’s transcendent, the act, and for the longest moment Jon allows himself to believe that they’re alone in their embrace. And then —

“Hit her.” Ramsay’s order slithers like a snake across the room. “Not too hard, mind — I think you’ve marked up my dear fragile wife quite enough by now. Your sister is such a _delicate_ thing, you know.”

 _Your sister my wife your sister my wife…_ The words make Jon dizzy as he sups on Sansa’s cunt all the more vigorously. He smacks her arse with the hand that had claimed it, and a gasp tears from her breast. The sharp sting echoes in the cavernous chamber, the air humid and heavy with their ragged breaths, damp skin, thundering hearts, greedy hands…

 _Your sister my wife_ — Ramsay does not call her by her name — not Sansa, never Sansa — but _your sister, my wife_ , switching between the two like it’s all part of his game, so often that Jon hardly knows what Sansa’s meant to be to him anymore, only what she _is_ —

_Lover._

Jon murmurs the word between her folds, right before he strikes her arse again, as he takes her clit in one long, glorious twirl of his tongue, and Sansa shouts his name like the highest note in her most beloved of romantic songs.

Her release coats his beard, dripping in slow rivulets through the coarse hairs. She sags against him, sated, and Jon pants heavily as he massages her knees and pulls long, reverent kisses from her still-trembling thighs.

 _“Mine,”_ Jon whispers as he licks beneath her navel, so only Sansa can hear — she spears her fingers through his curls, coaxing a soft groan from him — but then Ramsay speaks loudly enough for the entire room.

“You’ve been quite selfish, my lady,” he admonishes. “Your poor, dear brother makes you peak, and I do fear he’s fit to burst.”

Uncomfortably, Jon shifts on his knees. His cock has been yearning for Sansa since she first put her hands on him, but he’d been so intent on _her_ that he’d paid little mind to his personal gratification; hers was enough by far.

But not enough, it seems, for Ramsay, as he asks with a cordiality bordering on camaraderie (false, though, always such a lie), “How would you like to proceed, Lord Commander? Shall my wife take your cock in her mouth? Her arse?”

Gaze fixed on Sansa sitting above him — shining eyes, apple-blossom cheeks, heart-shaped lips — Jon speaks around the hoarseness in his voice to make himself as clear as the longest summer’s day: “I would have her astride me, Lord Bolton.”

“Hm —” a rueful grin graces Ramsay’s thin lips “— I did _so_ hope you’d fuck her like a wolf.”

Jon lifts himself to his feet, and Sansa’s eyes follow his ascent. Her breath comes shallow as she watches him, as he runs careful fingertips down the side of her face, pausing at the purple bruises he’d left on her skin.

_Mine._

He caresses her chin, then lifts it to better lock their gazes — a storm of grey over a sea of blue — and he tells the gods that have forsaken them, who seek to punish them, “I’d wish to look upon her face as I took her.”

“Quite decided on her cunt, then, aren’t you?” Ramsay hums, disappointed, but he recovers quickly to clap his hands in a show of acquiescence. _The mood swings of a mad dog._ “Well, let it not be said that the Warden of the North is an inhospitable man. If you’d like to spend your stay at Winterfell buried in its lady’s cunny any which way you please, then I must oblige.”

He snaps his fingers, the sound sharp in the heady air. “Get on with it, then. Ride your brother like a proper mount, my darling wife.”

 _“Don’t listen.”_ Jon breathes the words into her hairline when he presses a kiss to her forehead. _“He’s not here.”_ His lips ghost to her temple. _“It’s only us.”_

The mattress dips, the furs shift, as Jon rejoins Sansa on the bed. She seems to take his words to heart, and takes it upon herself to unlace his breeches before Ramsay can intervene with more curt instructions. Jon’s breath catches when her hand surrounds his throbbing, near-on anguished cock, and he releases the sigh into her mouth when he kisses her — ferocious and starved.

He wants to take his time with her. Oh, how he would worship her, savour her, how he’d let the evening hours bleed into the dawn, loving her all the while; slow and languorous, the way he’d adore her if they had the freedom. Jon’s brow furrows with the force of his imagination, with the intensity of Sansa’s mouth, her tongue sliding against his. She strokes him as slowly as he would take her, if only they were alone.

But they have no such freedom, no such choice — _not yet_ — and Ramsay will want a fast, hungry fuck between them, to which he will bear witness. A bedding ceremony all their own, a cruel twist on a much-loved tradition, but binding all the same: As far as Jon is concerned, if his brothers could betray him to the brink of death, if he could hang them for their mutiny, if he could break his vows by riding to Winterfell to save her, then _Seven save him_ , too, but he can break her marriage to this unworthy animal just as well.

Staying just one step ahead of Ramsay, Jon slips the remains of Sansa’s dress from her hips so that they fall over his own feet, braced on the stone floor. She is bare, vulnerable, and — his heart stutters — _all for him_. 

He takes her behind the knee once more, as he had when he’d loved her with his mouth, and pulls her onto his lap. She hovers over him, her cunt still hot and damp from his attentions; Jon’s cock twitches at her nearness, and his hips buck upwards to be nearer still.

Ramsay makes a remark at that, but Jon can no longer hear him. The man can watch, he can scoff, he can hiss, but he _cannot_ tell Jon how to love her — Sansa is _his_ , whatever Ramsay Bolton cares to think. Now, when his voice calls to them from his corner of the room, it’s as though the words are spoken by someone who’s not really there at all.

“Sansa…” Her name is a low rumble in Jon’s throat. His nose nudges hers before he plucks another quick, deep kiss from her warm, wet mouth. They part, panting, while Jon’s hands sweep her sides and lock around her waist. “I want you.”

Sansa’s fingers knot in his hair and she tells him, _“I’m yours.”_

Although he cannot hear what Ramsay demands of them, the threat of his presence lingers. So Jon stares into her sapphire pools of blue, thumbs teasing the muscles of her lower back, and he hopes that Sansa can see everything he wishes to say: _I love you_ and _I’m sorry_ and _I’ll make this better, I promise. I’ll take you away_.

But first, he must take her _here_ : in her parents’ bed, under the watchful eye of her husband — but Jon will make a widow of her before the night is through.

 _And I’ll make a wife of you again soon after_ , he thinks, and takes her with one swift, single-minded thrust.

He does not stop to consider that she is still his sister, no matter what transpires between them in this bedchamber — for that holds no consequence to him anymore. They’ve gone too far, Jon knows, and plunges deeper inside of her. Sansa’s answering cry is short and jagged, the moan that follows protracted, lingering, swallowing the way she murmurs his name throughout.

The room feels so much smaller than it has since Jon breached the threshold. There is nothing here but Sansa: her thighs, blushing from the scratch of his beard, embedded with the indentations of his teeth, straining on either side of his own; her hands, exploring the dips in his muscles and the puckered skin of his scars; her cascade of auburn tresses, engulfing him in her perfume when she leans forward to kiss behind his ear; and the way that she looks at him as he takes her…

 _Gods_ , but he could drown in that look, and never be happier to go, so long as it was she who took his soul.

Jon’s hand cuts through the waterfall of her hair. “You feel so good, Sansa, _so_ good riding me —”

Through the fog of his breath mingling with Sansa’s, Jon hears that now-disembodied voice come to call: _Speak up, now._

 _“Uhhhnnn —”_ Jon grits his teeth when Sansa rolls her hips, taking him faster and deeper. His hands clasp her arse to guide her to his ever-increasing pace.

“Just you and me, Jon,” she whispers like a secret. She drags her tongue along the scar in his eyebrow. “Just us, love. Tell me. Say it loud.” One sharp rotation of her hips, her cunt, has Jon licking an avid path up the valley of her breasts and gets her to gasping. “Scream it for me.”

And who does Jon think he is, to deny her?

 _“Sansa —”_ Every time he says her name, he utters it as though in prayer. His fingerprints tattoo her gyrating hips. “Sansa, you’re so tight for me. That’s all mine, isn’t it? All for your bastard half-brother —” more growl than coherence now “— your _filthy_ , common brother, who wants to do all manner of filthy things to you — you’d like it, wouldn’t you?”

He bites her throat, just as he’d done to start this all, and laves soaking, open-mouthed kisses atop the mark. “You want me to _love you raw_ —”

 _“Yes,”_ Sansa cries over the rumble of her husband in the corner. Her hand balls into a fist over Jon’s heart, rolling her knuckles against his once-fatal scar just as she rolls her cunt around his hungry cock. “ _Yes_ , Jon, I want you to _love me like you want_ —”

The blood boils hot in Jon’s veins, clouds his senses to everything but _her_ , Sansa — pink blotches blooming across her naked skin, hair like the leaves of the weirwood tree under which they used to pray, but now Jon pays penance only to her.

His entire body is tightening, coiling as his release approaches. When Sansa clenches around him, Jon flips their positions; he tosses her back onto the mattress and reenters her in one fluid, almost harsh motion.

But she moans her approval and his name, and he _doesn’t stop_.

He thrusts into her in measured, slow, deep strokes. Her nails bite into his back, her whimpers crashing against the inside of her closed mouth. His hand cups under her chin, her jaw; his lips kiss a trail to Sansa’s ear and he whispers into it, “I’ll kill him. I’ll take his head, I _promise you_ —”

It’s this that makes her come again — and, with his mouth on her raging pulse, he comes with her.

 

* * *

 

When Ramsay takes his leave, he leaves a warning in his wake:

“My men will be stationed at your doors. I wouldn’t think of challenging them.”

Jon sits up, covering Sansa’s warm, spent body with his. _Mine mine mine_ — the word thunders through Jon’s mind; he wonders if it will ever stop, but the mad hammering of his heart beneath Sansa’s touch tells him that it _won’t_ , ever. _Mine. He doesn’t get to see her anymore._

His voice is a wild thing, a raspy scratch in his throat. Sansa’s scent fills his nostrils, her taste lingers and his skin tingles everywhere she’d touched; his blood hums _mine mine mine_ , and when he looks at Ramsay to address him, to strike fear in his heartless breast — _kill kill kill_ —

“And what if I only wanted to challenge you?”

A smirk twists Ramsay’s mouth. “I’m not a stupid man, Lord Commander. _The greatest swordsman in all of Westeros_ , they call you. You’ve demonstrated your skills upon my lady wife well enough tonight.”

_Kill kill kill —_

“Do try to keep her happy, won’t you?” Ramsay says whilst Jon seethes. “While you’re here, at the very least. For I’m afraid my hospitality doesn’t last forever, Jon Snow. And I’m quite the jealous man.”

_Kill him, gut him, end him —_

Sansa curls into his side, and Jon turns his back on Ramsay’s retreating form to attend to her. The torches are doused and the doors locked, leaving them alone in a shroud of darkness, of quiet, of _peace_.

And in the dark, they reach for one another.

Her hair is spread upon the pillow, and Jon buries his face in it. _Lavender and woodsmoke and sweat._

He does not wish to act as her brother now; such history has been stripped, debased, destroyed between them. Jon Snow is no brother of Sansa Stark now, and his heart is lighter for it.

“Are you alright?” His voice is gruff still, but gentle as his hands as he runs them through her hair, over her shoulders… down her sides, to thread his fingers through hers.

She squeezes his hand to reassure him, her words as hoarse and honest as his own: “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me, Jon.”

“Never,” he swears. It is among the only vows he’ll keep now.

His lips nudge hers and then part, taking her bottom one between his to nibble softly on it. She tastes sweet, salty with her sweat and his own — she tastes like Sansa, _she tastes like me_.

The thought comes, as unbidden and true as all the ones before that had claimed her; and now it comes to claim him too — _I am hers._

_I always have been._

“I’ll protect you.” Jon’s breath comes harsh, bursting upon her chapped, well-loved mouth. His tone, his sigh, come forth fiercely; it is a grand departure from the gentle brush of his fingers down her forearm, and yet he wraps her up in nothing but truth. “I promise.”

She lifts their joined hands, so she might trace the scruffy line of his jaw with her thumb. He exhales, slow, heavy, thick, against the steady beat of the pulse at her wrist.

_“I know.”_


	2. can you hear, when i say—i have never felt this way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: so this chapter wound up reading more tender and romantic than the dirty post-battle fuck i thought it was gonna be?? but i think the end result suits the mood better, and it’s more emotionally fulfilling, all things considered. anyway i hope it’s satisfying bc i gave up
> 
> **throws glitter**

Jon does not wait long — only into the dead of that same night — before he goes in for the kill.

They don’t have time to dawdle, to wait. Sansa had confessed her fears to him in the dark, that Ramsay’s appetites would only grow past cruelty to violence, just as they had since they’d been married. He had never been a kind man, but Sansa had allowed herself to think that she could manipulate him in time — wrap him around her little finger, as Cersei and Petyr and Margaery had taught her in King’s Landing — but she’d learned on their wedding night that Ramsay Bolton was not a man who could fall prey to the manipulations of a pretty girl.

He had allowed Jon to take Sansa as he liked tonight, but there was no telling when Ramsay would tear away that false veil of security and force them into barbarism and atrocities far worse than a bastard coupling with his half-sister.

Because at least _that_ , Jon thinks, had been something they’d wanted — however sinful, however humiliating Ramsay had intended it to be, Jon had wanted to mark Sansa as his own. He’d wanted to please her, to make her peak, to make her his. And Sansa had wanted him, too; she’d wanted him, because he’d take care of her, he’d keep her safe. But now…

 _I don’t know what he’ll make you do to me_ , she’d murmured into his neck, and Jon could not bear for either of them to find out.

He had come to Winterfell without a plan, without so much as a second thought, on the word of a madman and the sweet promise of Sansa; and now Jon will take the castle back with as little mercy as Ramsay Bolton had shown his wife.

 _I will make a widow of her tonight_ , he thinks, not for the first time, and presses a kiss to her forehead as she sleeps fitfully beside him.

“I’ll be back soon,” he rumbles in her ear. Sansa’s fingers twitch in his, but she does not stir otherwise. His thumb sweeps the shape of her cheekbone, just once more — before he lets the quiet fury within to overtake him and drive his desire to stain his hands with Ramsay Bolton’s blood.

His eyes roll back in his head in a rush of shadow and sounds, and he wargs into Ghost, pacing the wolfswood outside…

_Powerful legs, straining muscles. A mass of hot, murderous longing — saliva dripping from hungry fangs, low growls ripping from his throat. He is swift through the trees, silent as the spirits for which he is named as he clears the front steps of the castle._

_There are guards — men armored but unprepared for the strength of a direwolf driven by his master’s hatred, his rage, his bloodlust. They fall, one by one, coating his jaws in warm sticky red. He laps at it with his tongue, savouring their cries, the final vestiges of their sorry, worthless lives…_

_You watched, he thinks. He remembers. You watched, all this time, and you did nothing to save her._

_Longclaw scrapes against the stone floor when he retrieves it from the grasp of the last guard, now spluttering his final moments away in a puddle of his own blood, piss, and tears._

_He feels no remorse, no mercy._

The door to the lord’s chambers pounds ominously, and Jon rouses with a strangled gasp.

Ghost can smell his master and his lady — their pain, their anger — within, and he breaks the door down with the great force of his body. Longclaw clatters to the floor at Jon’s feet as he leaves the bed, and Ghost takes his place beside a still sleeping but restless Sansa. Again, Jon brushes a kiss to her temple as Ghost nudges her hip with his bloodied nose.

“I’ll be back soon,” Jon repeats, and retrieves his sword on his way into the darkened corridor. Jon easily could have killed Ramsay Bolton the same way as he’d taken the guards, in the body of his wolf, but he wants the pleasure of taking the life of Sansa’s husband with his own hand.

When he comes upon the usurper’s chambers, the battle is short-lived. Jon has no interest in giving the man a merciful death, but he finds no pleasure in the things that Ramsay Bolton does — games and taunts and torture — he only wants to gut him like a fish, and leave him to bleed out in a pathetic heap on the floor.

Although in possession of his own body, Jon feels completely _dis_ possessed when Ramsay’s nose cracks beneath his knuckles. Hands and teeth and blood, so much blood that Jon could bathe in it…

The sound of Ramsay’s laughter echoes in his ears, ringing incessantly, swirling with the words he’d written in his letter, with the words he’d ordered just a few short hours ago…

_Come and see come and see come and see —_

Jon had come, and he had seen, and now he wishes to tear Ramsay Bolton’s limbs apart, to rip his still-beating heart from his chest, to put his head on a spike upon Winterfell’s ramparts so the North could see that the Starks had come again. Their white-and-grey banners would be smeared with dirt and soot and Bolton blood, and _no one_ would think to take their home from them again.

He sees nothing but red — his own wrath, unleashed and untempered; miles and miles of blood, his enemy’s and his own; the shuddering leaves of the weirwood tree, where the Old Gods had kept their silence all this while; the falling, cresting, rushing waves of her _red red_ hair…

When at last Jon plunges Longclaw into Ramsay Bolton’s heart, the man smiles — his face is disfigured now, blood streaming from his nose, his ears, his mouth, half-collapsed from Jon’s fists alone — and he gurgles past the blood, past his encroaching death:

_“Even honourable men such as yourself have their weaknesses, don’t they, Lord Commander?”_

Jon says nothing in return. He pulls Longclaw from the other man’s chest and watches dispassionately as his body crumples, lifeless, to the spot in front of the hearth. He does not bother to clean his sword, but leaves the chambers soaked in the evidence of his victory.

The dead man’s words linger as Jon makes his way back down the silent, shadowy corridor to where she’s waiting for him, and only now does he answer Ramsay’s final question, his last words:

_Yes._

 

* * *

 

Sansa is awake when Jon returns. His blood thrums, his body throbs, and he cannot take his eyes off of her.

The air between them crackles, sparks, as Jon sets Longclaw — caked in wet red death — aside, and Ghost alights from the bed to pad silently through the open door to stand guard outside. Ramsay’s men are dead, and the rest of the castle will not rise until well after dawn; but Jon allows the direwolf to pass, and he bars the door behind him.

“Jon —” Sansa sits up on her knees, a sheet held to her chest for modesty — even in the dark, even after all they’ve done.

 _Ever the lady_ , Jon thinks as he crosses the room to be with her. He cradles her face in his hands, filthier even than the blade of his sword, but she melts into his touch nevertheless; his fingers sweep the shape of her jaw, her cheekbones, her eyebrows, her lips…

He thumbs her mouth open, so that he can feel the warmth of her breath wash over his skin, as if to cleanse him of what he’s done for her sake — for _theirs_.

Sansa’s hands reach for his chest — bare and bloody — and she traces his scars, the lines of his muscles that shudder beneath her touch. Her gaze follows the path of her fingers, transfixed, and her breath comes shallow when she asks of the blood on his hot, naked skin, “Is this his?”

“Aye,” Jon confirms, his words a throaty rumble, “it is, and a bit of mine as well.”

“Don’t wash it,” she whispers. “Not yet.”

He hadn’t intended to. Washing meant keeping away from her, disentangling himself from Sansa, and Jon has no desire to leave her side tonight. _I don’t wish to leave her, ever._

He clambers onto the mattress in front of her, on his knees as she is, hands following the curve of her arms as she continues to map the valleys of his chest.

 _“Mmmmm.”_ He sighs, purrs like some touch-starved alleyway cat, when Sansa’s soft palms brush back and forth across his heart. He noses her jaw, hands slipping to her naked waist. “Are you alright?”

He needs to know, needs to be sure, that she feels as safe as he can offer. He wants her again — he’ll never stop — but he won’t take her unless she asks him to.

She nods, then ducks her head to bury it in his shoulder. Her lips ghost across his skin. “You killed him.”

Jon sucks in a breath when her mouth latches onto his neck. His grip digs into her, holding her fast. “I did.”

_I’d do it again, too. A thousand times — as many times as you wished._

The room is quiet, save for the slight creak of the bed when Sansa shifts on her knees. She’s still touching him — hands hovering, fingers lingering, nails lightly scratching. She is slow, thorough, reverent, as though she wishes to commit his body to memory. Jon shudders with every dance of her fingertips over his scars. He has not been touched in so long, has not known such warmth and tenderness in all of his life — and he wants to give that back to her, too.

His hands slide up to hold her face once more, coaxing her upwards to look at him. The glow of the pale white moon shafts through the window to light up her eyes — black and indigo and _hungry_ — and the flick of her tongue against her lips has Jon’s blood thrumming, his body throbbing, the way it had when he’d returned to the lord’s chambers, _wanting her_.

“Sansa…” His voice is a plea, a prayer, as he pulls the sheet from her chest so he can feel her heartbeat underneath his hand, with no barriers left between them.

 _She is so alive_ , he thinks, and would thank the gods for it if he thought they were listening. But he knows that they’re not, that they haven’t been, and perhaps they were never even there at all; but it doesn’t matter, not now… _I made it to her in time._

Her eyes follow his, her fingers trace the tracks of dried blood along his jaw, and she whispers “Kiss me” just as Jon rushes forth in a sudden, furious frenzy, and claims her mouth with his.

There is no hesitation this time, no pretense, no words of comfort and reassurance necessary when there are no prying eyes left alive to watch them. There is no one left to witness, to orchestrate, to taint their union — and Jon vows, here and now, with his hands on her hips and his tongue in her mouth, that he will have her _alone_ from now on.

Gently — so tenderly that it belies the desire coursing through him like a raging wildfire — Jon nudges her back to lay upon the bed, her back against the furs and chest pressed to his.

Sansa’s body arches when Jon licks into her mouth, tasting every crevice and corner. His hands slide down her sides to push her more firmly into the mattress, and he leaves bloody fingerprints upon her skin.

His eyes flash when he sees them — further evidence that she is his, that he’s made her his, with her husband’s death hovering between them like some sweet dream, and he thinks of the pale red smears on her ivory skin: _I will wash them from her myself._

He will wash it _all_ away from her, and her hands shall follow in the wake of his.

There will come a day, a night, when Jon takes his time with her, when he takes it slow to explore and savour her. But now, his blood sings when her hands caress his arms, when her legs hitch around his waist, opening herself to him, inviting him to bury himself within her and never leave…

He eases into her, already aching, itching to have her the way he was meant to from the start — just them, only Jon and Sansa, with hands unforced and beckoning. _She deserves that_ , he thinks as he rocks against her, as her nails dig into his shoulders and she moans his name like a love song. _She should have the best of me._

And so he gives it to her.

“I love you.” The confession is a low, strained grunt as Jon grips Sansa beneath her thigh and fucks her deeper. Her answering cry is sharp and satisfied. “Not as a brother does. You’re mine, Sansa…”

 _Mine — mine — mine…_ He repeats the word, over and over, endlessly, growling it with every thrust, every pinch of his fingers in her pretty porcelain flesh. He does not wish for her to forget, to deny it, and he will tell her again every day for as long as they might live — and now they will live those days together.

_You’re mine, completely. And I am yours, forever._

“I killed him for you,” Jon tells her when he sucks on her rapid pulse point, beating all for him just as he lives for her, “so _I_ could have you — so he couldn’t _touch you_ again… because you’re mine, not his, not anyone else’s.”

He picks up his pace so that the headboard rattles against the stone wall, so that the bed creaks beneath their writhing, thrusting bodies.

Beyond the barred door, his direwolf releases a short, low howl.

“You’re _my_ girl, Sansa,” Jon grounds the words out from between clenched teeth, as the arch of her feet slide up his unrelenting, gyrating hips, as she gasps brokenly, heatedly, in time with his whispers. “ _My_ lover, _my_ woman —”

His hand finds her jaw, urging her lips to his as he pants into the kiss, “Tell me, Sansa — tell me you love me, that you want me to stay —”

“Stay,” she implores without a moment’s thought. Her hands clutch at his back, her legs hold him tighter to her, so that his thrusts come more quick and needy. _Gods_ , but does he need her… “Stay with me. You’ve given the North back to me, stay and rule it by my side… _oh_ ,” she breaks her demands on a sigh when his thumb slips between them to lavish the promised of release over her clit.

 _“Jon —”_ Sansa reaches for a taste, another kiss, and he readily complies “— I love you.”

_Love you love you love you —_

Tears prick at the corners of Jon’s eyes as they fall from Sansa’s as well. The salt of their shaking need, their shuddering relief, mingles between their lips as their mouths open, breaths exchange, and the kiss clings.

_Love you love you love you…_

One of Jon’s hands stays pressed to her thigh as he moves inside of her, and the other brushes her cheekbone, strokes her jaw, dragging their tear tracks across her skin. Sansa’s touch finds his scars to soothe them, travel to his heart to ignite it; she makes him soar and sing and _believe_ in the stories again — of lovers found and monsters slain, giants toppled and castles reclaimed. She is a ballad all her own, and Jon will see to it that she is crowned the Northern queen.

 _Mine._ He murmurs the word once more, against her lips for he cannot tear his away. She tastes so sweet, smells of lavender and smoke and _him_ and _home_ —

 _She is home to me_ , Jon thinks, and he loves her ‘til the sun comes up, and well into the spring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: epilogue: they totally get married and rule the north into health and prosperity. they fuckin win everything. nobody cares that they’re still presumably half-siblings; everyone in westeros is feelin’ up their sister and at least these two know how to manage a government, so everybody just rolls with it 
> 
> ~the end

**Author's Note:**

> “well if you can’t say it during kink week, when can you, eh?” —love actually (2003)


End file.
